Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

South East Asia's first mountaineering training center has been established on Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia. It is located in Mt Kinabalu National Park, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, renowned for its rich plant and animal diversity.

Adventure seekers will enjoy the new 'via ferrata', or 'iron road', a mountain route equipped with fixed rungs, rails, cables, stemples (crossbars and supports), ladders and bridges, that makes an otherwise difficult terrain accessible to people with a wide range of climbing abilities.

Mount Kinabalu's via ferrata is the highest in the world, starting at 3,200 metres and ending at 3,800m above sea level. The next highest is in Italy, ending at 3,600m.

Read more.

Labels: adventure, Asia, climbing, Malaysia, Mount Kinabalu, mountaineering

A record 514 people have climbed Mount Everest this year, which means that more than 2000 people have now reached the summit since the first, officially recorded, successful ascent by New Zealander, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, in 1953. However, mountaineering's great unanswered question is, did George Mallory and Sandy Irvine reach the summit 30 years earlier?

In 1924, Mallory and Irvine disappeared just 800 feet from the summit and eight years ago, Mallory's body was found by Conrad Anker. Now, retracing the steps of Mallory and Irvine, Conrad Anker is playing the part of Mallory and Leo Houlding is playing the part of his climbing companion, Irvine. They are dressed in period costume and are using authentic gear, to recreate the climb for a documentary.

The climb is also being recorded by blog and web video, on the expedition website.

Labels: Conrad Anker, Everest, expedition, George Mallory, Leo Houlding, Mallory and Irvine, Mount Everest, mountaineering, Sandy Irvine, video